Ameobi prepares for one final battle before trying to save his career

On Sunday morning Shola Ameobi will board a flight bound for Colorado where he is scheduled to have potentially career-saving hip surgery. The Newcastle United centre-forward may well struggle to clamber up the aeroplane's steps and his mother, who is joining him for a 12-day stay in America, could even be required to help him into his seat.

It all depends on whether Ameobi leads the Tyneside attack at Arsenal on Saturday. "I want to play because I'm having the operation on Tuesday and I know it's my last game of the season," he said yesterday. Yet whenever the Nigerian-born, Geordie-bred striker has played in recent months he has paid a physical price. "I've had the hip problem for about two years now. It's degenerated badly in the past few months and will become career threatening if I don't have the operation.

Ameobi, unlike certain colleagues, has gone well beyond the call of duty this season and yesterday offered his beleaguered manager, Glenn Roeder, and chairman, Freddy Shepherd, unstinting support. "Nobody's forced me to play, I've wanted to but it's hampered certain areas of my game and I've been in a lot of pain at times. I've had quite a few injections to try to numb the pain but after some games I struggle to even walk for two days."

With his colleagues having stumbled their way into the relegation zone, Newcastle are a pale shadow of the ensemble who rose to seventh under Roeder in the second half of last season when Ameobi averaged a goal every other game. But, with Michael Owen also out for the season, Alan Shearer retired and Obafemi Martins still adapting to English football, Ameobi is adamant that Roeder should be given time to put things right.

"The lack of strikers has hurt us," he said. "If you took Thierry Henry away from Arsenal and Didier Drogba away from Chelsea they wouldn't be the same teams. We've got faith in the manager and know we've got the ability to get out of this, to put a run of wins together.

"The dressing room is behind Glenn, that's never been in doubt. We know what Glenn did for us last season, the belief he put into players and the way we feel about him has not changed. When you get bad results, people outside think the players have turned against the manager but that is not the case; we're fully behind Glenn."

Ameobi believes his team-mates appreciate Roeder's straightforwardness. "Glenn is honest; he tells us what he thinks whether we want to hear it or not. If he doesn't agree with something you're doing, he'll tell you to your face, he won't go behind your back. Because we know he's honest we trust his judgment and we all respond to him."

Ameobi does not agree that Shepherd, the subject of recent protests by fans, has outlived his usefulness. "For me the criticism that has come the chairman's way is unfair. To me he's given his all and put everything he can into the club. He has never been shy about putting all his resources into the team. He's made money available at all times and bought some great players like Alan and Michael.

"I don't think the season's over for Newcastle; there's two thirds of it left and we're still in all the cups. We were down and out by the halfway stage last year but still qualified for Europe."

Roeder and Shepherd can only hope such optimism proves justified.

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